


Once Upon a Time on Delta 5

by MonkeyMindScream



Series: Rare Pair Week 2019 [1]
Category: Super Robot Monkey Team Hyperforce Go!
Genre: F/F, starting off Rare Pair Week with some space lesbians I guess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-25
Updated: 2019-08-25
Packaged: 2020-09-26 13:31:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,402
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20390503
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MonkeyMindScream/pseuds/MonkeyMindScream
Summary: Day 1: HumanAliana knows she'll never love another home like she did Arcadia, but she won't let that stop her from looking. Shame she's gotten herself stuck on Delta 5, which is definitely not a candidate for a New Home. It's too hot, the view isn't even remotely scenic, it's a little backwater-ish, the native animal species are a nightmare...But she will admit, the locals are nice.





	Once Upon a Time on Delta 5

Arcadia had been (in Aliana’s opinion) a breathtaking combination of advanced, constantly evolving technology, and beautiful, untouched wilderness, pastures, and mountains. She’d told herself, as she set out with the other survivors to find a new home-world, not to set her standards too high in that regard. It wasn’t likely she was going to find a place with a tech/wildlands ratio quite like Arcadia, and anyway no new home she found was ever going to feel like _home_ had.

This proved to be very true… for _her_. Bolkron 9 had sprawling, massive cities brimming with tech; some people decided to settle there. Verdenia had nature surrounding all inhabited areas, and was overall very rural. A handful of people were welcomed there with open arms. So it went, the small group of wandering survivors growing smaller with every planet they passed, until eventually…

…eventually, it was just Aliana, alone again.

* * *

“Incoming craft…”

Aurora looked up. “I thought the shipment of mining supplies wasn’t due for a few more days?”

“It’s not,” Super Quasar said, joining Johnny by the scanners. “This is a single-pilot ship…”

“Should I signal to man the blasters?” Johnny asked.

Aurora rolled her eyes. What was with _boys_ and blowing things up? Nudging past her teammates, she activated the comm next to the scanner, speaking into it.

“Coming in, this is Delta 5 mining station 248R hailing oncoming craft, identify yourself. Respond.”

A pause.

“My name is Aliana, formerly of planet Arcadia. I mean no harm. Requesting permission to land.”

_‘Formerly _of planet Arcadia?’ Hm. Have to ask about that later. “Permission granted, be wary of geysers when landing. Delta 5 out.”

The ship turned out to be fairly high-class, if a bit scorched. It had an ion-injected neutron hyperdrive, at least. Aurora had always kind of wanted to see what would happen if she put one of those in her bike.

The woman that climbed out was… odd. Well, alright, she was _mostly_ fine, but her hair was bizarre. She was completely bald on half of her head. Her outfit was a little strange too; the top part of her… top? Leotard? Defied gravity and stayed up on her chest despite not being attached to anything to help it do so.

“Greetings, Aliana of Arcadia,” Quasar said evenly. “We are the Sun Riders. I am Super Quasar, this is Johnny Sunspot, and that is Aurora Six.” He gestured at them each in turn. “What brings you to Delta 5?”

Aliana motioned at her ship. Aurora noticed she had a decent amount of muscle on her arms. “I got dragged into a meteor shower yesterday, and something in my ship got damaged. I only just barely made it here.”

“I could help you with that,” Aurora said, eliciting looks of confusion and exasperation from Quasar and Johnny respectively. She wasn’t usually so forthcoming as to offer assistance to strangers, and Quasar _knew_ this, hence his confusion. But Johnny knew Aurora too, hence his exasperation. “I have a bike I work on all the time, and I fix up ships now and then too.”

Aliana shook her head. “I can probably fix it up myself if I can find the parts. Or better yet just drop it off at a garage. You have one of those around here?”

Aurora nodded. “This way,” she said, motioning for Aliana to follow. “I’ll show you where it is, and then we can get a transport to bring in your ship.”

* * *

Apparently the problem with her ship was more substantial than Aliana had originally thought. The local mechanic was bewildered how Aliana had managed to keep it running at all after the initial damage had been dealt. Aliana quipped she was just lucky like that. The woman shot back it wasn’t _luck_ that had helped get her here, it was nothing short of divine intervention. Her guardian angel must’ve pulled some overtime.

Anyway, the bottom line was it was going to take several _weeks_ to get the thing running again, if ever. The mechanic remarked it might be cheaper in the long run to just get a new ship. Aliana sagged and asked her to do the best she could, and then asked if their colony had any hotels around.

She ran back into Aurora as she got lost trying to find the hostel the mechanic had described, who once again offered to help. Not wanting to wander around a hotspot for who could guess how long, Aliana accepted. They made polite conversation as they walked. Apparently Aurora had previously been an actress, and _The Sun Riders_ had been a television show.

Somehow it came out that Aurora personally knew the Hyperforce, though when Aliana initially asked for more background (citing her experience with them), Aurora seemed uncomfortable for a moment. She eventually described how Chiro and the monkeys responded to a distress call of theirs and the resulting team-up. Aliana responded by giving a blow-by-blow of her experience with them.

They got to the hostel still talking, and Aurora followed Aliana into her room to finish her story. But then Aliana told another of hers, and then Aurora came back with another of _hers_, and so on. Strangely though, the conversation continued even after they ran out of stories to tell. Aliana found she didn’t mind.

* * *

Formless hadn’t been the only things around to threaten the colony. Native species would sometimes wander too close, trying to push boundaries to see how much of a threat the local humans were, or else just trying to claim the territory for themselves. Particularly since there didn’t seem to be any formless _left_ to scare them away anymore.

The worst were the lacertalces. They were basically what would happen if a moose was wrapped in lizard skin and made twice as big. It was a major problem whenever one decide to stake claim to the area the colony was stationed in. Which happened to be the current situation.

Huge, venomous, and highly aggressive, with powerful back haunches for kicking. Honestly Aurora would have preferred the Formless.

The Nebutron 8 was really more for transport than it was for fighting, so they didn’t bother activating it when the lacertalce showed up. Honestly, a sphere on two twiggy legs was hardly the sturdiest design in the world; Aurora wasn’t sure what the show designers had been thinking when they settled on that for the design of their ship. Maybe they’d thought _the power of television_ would make it seem more formidable. Shame _the power of television_ couldn’t help them here.

Given the size of the creature, hand-to-hand combat was pretty much out. It wouldn’t have much effect and the likelihood of getting bitten in half was too high, so they were regulated to their weapons as they tried to drive it off. The miners were offering as much support as they could with cover fire, but for the most part it just seemed to be making it mad.

Aurora was in the process of aiming for one of its eyes when something blurred past her, charging the beast. She had a momentary heart attack, assuming it was one of the miners or her teammates, but with a second glance she realized it was _Aliana._

Aurora tried to shout something – a warning, maybe, or else some kind of assertion that she was the craziest/dumbest woman alive – but before she got farther than a few incomprehensible syllables, Aliana had leapt from the ground and onto its back. There were a few moments where it flailed, trying to buck her off, and then it started running aimlessly. Then Aurora realized it _wasn’t_ running aimlessly, Aliana was steering it somehow.

She was _riding _it.

Aurora watched, transfixed, when it suddenly veered closer. Aliana roared _“Now!!”_ Aurora’s instincts moved before her brain could make them and she shot her gun just as Aliana dove off its back. Super Quasar and Johnny, she noticed, fired the same time she did. Their combined blasts struck it dead in the chest, and it was knocked head over heels backwards.

It landed in a heap, staggered back to its feet, shook itself off, gave one final glance back towards them, and retreated.

“You should train with us sometime,” Aurora said as Aliana trotted over to them, watching the lacertalce shamble off. “I think there’s a lot we could show each other.”

Slowly, Aliana smiled. “Yeah. I suppose I could do that.”

* * *

“Why don’t just you stay here?”

Aliana looked up from her ship. “What?”

Aurora was draped lazily across the hood, staring out the garage door at the clouds drifting through the pink sky with equal idleness. She said again, bored, “Why don’t you stay here? You have nowhere you _have_ or _want_ to go, and you’ve already decided you’ll never love another planet as much as you loved Arcadia.” She turned to look at her. “You’re already here. Why not save some fuel and just stay?”

Aliana resolutely turned back to preparing her ship. “I’m not a fan of volcanoes. Just because I’ll never love a planet as_ much_ as Arcadia doesn’t mean I won’t find one that suits me better.” She sighed, expression falling. “I just need to keep looking until I find _home_.”

There was a pause, and then Aurora shrugged with too much aloofness to truly be uncaring. “Whatever suits you, I suppose. But I wouldn’t be complaining if you didn’t leave.”

Aliana looked back up.

* * *

A sunset, even over a volcanic crag, was still a sunset, which is inarguably pretty. Aurora felt remarkably cheesy for instead staring at Aliana, but there it was.

The uneven haircut had grown on her. She couldn’t imagine Aliana with “normal” hair now if she tried. Which was fine; she didn’t want to. Green was a good color on her, too. It brought out her eyes.

The sunset was inarguably pretty. Aurora thought Aliana was _beautiful._

She didn’t think, which was also fine, because this wasn’t something she needed to think about. She reached over, took Aliana’s face in her hands. She was surprised, looked on the brink of asking a question, but Aurora didn’t’ have time for that, so instead she gently pressed their mouths together.

Aurora had never been big on “_romance_.” It was a means to an end, tedium she had to wade through to get to what actually interested her, mostly just because the boys courting her had thought she’d be impressed by it. Having a first kiss at sunset was probably the most earnestly romantic thing she’d ever done.

She found she didn’t mind the tedium if it was with Aliana, who seemed to be sincerely enjoying it.

* * *

Aurora hadn’t counted on the nightmares.

She felt stupid for being surprised when it first happened. Aliana had seen her entire planet get _destroyed_. Her entire family, her neighbors, her friends, gone. _Boom_. If she _hadn’t_ had nightmares, there probably would’ve been something very wrong. Repression to the nth degree, or something.

Aurora had heard stories of people lashing out in their sleep during nightmares. She’d heard about their partners getting hopelessly bruised. In one case, she’d heard about a man with recurring nightmares who’d accidentally broken his girlfriend’s nose.

She wished that was the case with Aliana. She’d take a hundred broken noses, swollen eyes, bruised arms, any and all of it if it meant she wouldn’t have to watch her break down in her sleep.

She said names sometimes. Other times she’d try to convince a general populace to _go_. Aurora assumed, based on her varying levels of desperation and despair, that she was trying to warn her people that the planet was going to be destroyed, but nobody would listen. Aurora didn’t know for sure though; she was never brave enough to ask Aliana about it when she woke up.

Mostly though, she just begged. It was a soft, broken mantra played on loop: “_please no, please no, please, please, please no…_”

Aliana was never the only one crying when she had nightmares.

* * *

Seasons didn’t really change on Delta 5. Spring was hot, autumn was hot, winter was hot, summer was hot_ter_. Aliana found it hard to keep track of time because of this; it all blended together.

She sat up straight suddenly. “How long has it been?”

“Hm?” Aurora asked up from where she lay in her lap. She was reading an article about something or other on a datapad, and Aliana thought she saw the word “popple.”

“What are you reading?” she asked, sidetracked.

Aurora turned the pad slightly so Aliana would have a clearer view. There was a picture of a small, fuzzy, colorful something-or-other next to a box of text. “The popple population is decreasing across the galaxy,” Aurora explained, “because people poach them for pets, but then they get stressed out and die.”

Aliana made a face. “That’s awful.”

Aurora made a small sound of agreement, nodding as she turned the pad back to face her.

“…is it bad I kind of want one?”

“I was _just _thinking that! They’re so _cute!_”

Aliana grinned at the fit of giggles they both broke into. As they finished, Aurora asked, adjusting herself in Aliana’s lap, “How long has _what _been, now?”

Oh _right_. “How long has it been since I first got here?”

Aurora paused to do some mental math. After a moment, she said decisively, “Five years.”

Aliana stared. _Five? _It didn’t feel that long…

“How long since I started dating you?”

Aurora craned her head back to look at her, frowning. “You don’t _know?”_ She gave a tiny huff. “We started a few months after you landed, you can do the math.”

“I just want to hear you say it.”

Aurora tried to huff again, but it was ruined by her simultaneous efforts not to smile. “Four years, eight months, and thirteen days.” She returned her focus to her datapad. “And if you forget our anniversary _one more time_ I’m leaving you.”

Aliana laughed. “You say that every year.”

Aurora tilted her head back once more, sticking her tongue out impishly. “Well I _mean it_ this year.”

Aliana laughed again.

* * *

Delta 5 didn’t have advanced, constantly evolving technology. It had mining equipment, and that was pretty much it. It didn’t have beautiful, untouched wilderness, pastures, and mountains. It had rocky crags and volcanoes and lava.

Aliana couldn’t help but think if felt like _home_ anyway.

**Author's Note:**

> This is a kind of pointless note, because it doesn't actually affect anything in the fic, but I'm going to make it anyway just to put my mind at ease: The war on Shuggazoom would take place in between the scenes of this fic. As in they'd meet, they'd hang, they'd fall in love or whatever, [they'd fight in a war], and then suddenly they've been together for five years. 
> 
> I completely forgot until about five minutes before posting this that both Aliana and Aurora would've eventually canonly met during that war, because I'd forgotten Aliana appeared in the shot of the Team's allies assembling. Up until realizing this I'd been writing the fic like the Sun Riders had helped with that, come home, and then Aliana showed up. So yeah, like I said not a BIG thing, but I didn't want to let that discrepancy slip without comment. OR have to add a whole new scene involving the war (I still have a few other things to wrap up for the week!).


End file.
